Announce The Vintage Computer Forum 1116

Backhoe operators are supposed to be alert and watch for the telltale red tinted concrete marking a buried live electrical box. Those too busy eating doughnuts will undoubtedly contribute to the yearly Darwin award nominations.

Plans aren't always reliable. There was a the case where we were installing a large temporary outdoor sign for a major hotel here in Las Vegas. The building engineers buttured us, after checking the plans, where we could sink the holes to anchor the pylon. A few feet down and red concrete dust starts coming out of the hole. Luckily we had an operator who knew his stuff, and shut down immediately. Turns out there were buried mains the building engineers didn't know about, and there were no places to drill anchors. We had to anchor the sign with concrete blocks and sandbags, while praying a windstorm wouldn't pop up over the convention run.

During the construction of that same casino, a friend of mine who worked for the county building inspectors had to investigate the rest of an electrician. He fell into the live primary transformer for the entire building (1000+ room hotel). All that was left was one shoe. Working around equipment carrying that much energy isn't much different than handling explosives. My friend moved on to a better job after that...safety officer for solid rocket fuel. Jack Peachicken